Going digital in your business? I select the best posts and highlight the reasons why it matters. Like it? Click "recommend" + register to get the digest in your inbox: http://fmcs.digital/newsletter-signup/

Corporate use of social technologies is mainstream, though the pace of adoption has slowed. But companies can still take advantage of the untapped potential these tools have to transform their organizations and create significant value.

A vast majority of respondents continue to cite business benefits,2and the mix of enterprises where executives report higher-than-average benefits is consistent with last year. One-fifth of companies qualify as fully networked organizations (Exhibit 2), those reaping the highest improvements in benefits from their technology use with internal and external stakeholders,3while the share seeing outsize benefits from internal company use (12 percent) remains small.4Again, given the large amount of value that social technologies could create through internal use, there is significant room here for companies to grow.

Farid Mheir's insight:

I've followed this survey since its inception in 2008 and I'VE always found it a great tool to convince executives of the business benefits - measurable - that social and collaboration bring to enterprises (termed enterprise 2.0).

But now this one shows a slow down in the rate of adoption, which does not bode well for those yet in the undecided camp. Unfortunately, not networking your employees means you do not benefits from reduction in travel cost, reductions in communication costs, faster product development time-to-market and increased access to knowledge (to name only the most important benefits).

More dangerous, the other half - your competitors - will benefit from them and thus you'll face increased competition for which you'll be ill equipped to handle.

This is one post of a series on "going paperless". Provides useful tips and techniques to get rid of all papers in your life. Targetted at the freelance/consultant/small business, I believe it should also make corporations (or certain departments) think about using simple cloud tools to capture knowledge in a simple way.

Of course, this uses evernote but other tools can be used as well. Personnally I do similar things using google drive.

“Instagram for us is huge — the engagement on Instagram is through the roof,” said Steve Hartman, managing director of direct and marketing at Urban Outfitters, Philadelphia.

“Just looking earlier today, we posted a picture of shoes in the office, and it got 40,000 likes on Instagram immediately,” he said. “So that one is really about us inspiring the customer and also showing that it goes back to the personality of the brand.”

Farid Mheir's insight:

Great example of usage of social media beyond a boring facebook page and followers. People that post photos of themselves are more attached to the brand and the other clients. And this can pply to way more than apparel. Think food - pics of your meals or what you've prepared with groceries you bought - or in a B2B environment pics of usage of front loaders or other mechanical equipments. Lots of opportunities to transform the customer interaction, feedback, commitment, and ultimately sales?

“Sitting has become the smoking of our generation.” I argued this in my recent talk at TED2013 and elsewhere while advocating for the concept of “walking meetings” because we spend more time sitting than sleeping.

Farid Mheir's insight:

Interesting point of view. I've started to work standing up 18 months ago and find benefits and some concerns with the concept. I find walking meetings may transform interactions but would face serious head winds in certain conditions: large meetings (more than 3-4) would make conversations difficult, weather (rain, snow) would be a deterrent, etc. But for 2-3 person meetings with few notes and pleasant weather, I think it is a great idea. And with support of technology (mobile phone, google glasses) this can actually be a good thing.

One thing pharmaceutical companies don't lack is information,” said Sterling Stites, CEO of InfoDesk. "What most of them do lack,” he added, “is a single platform capable of integrating all types of content, both internal and external, that allows them to organize, search and share company specific intelligence in meaningful ways.

Farid Mheir's insight:

Pharma is not a field I know much about. Yet I find it interesting how digital may help transforms the drug development process. This new Pharma tool - InfoDesk - appears to be merely the digitization of pen-n-paper collaboration processes. An improvement but not a revolution.

It brings back memories of Wired magazine Sergey brin's search for Parkinson's cure where a true digital transformation is proposed. Instead of formulating a theory, then painstakingly verifying its results in year long tests, Brin proposes the analysis of very large patient datasets to "look for patterns" which may suggest good investigation paths. And possibly transform the way drug research is done... as well as providing results much faster. That's what I call digital transformation of the medical/pharma world! From Wired:

"Brin is after a different kind of science altogether. Most Parkinson’s research, like much of medical research, relies on the classic scientific method: hypothesis, analysis, peer review, publication. Brin proposes a different approach, one driven by computational muscle and staggeringly large data sets. It’s a method that draws on his algorithmic sensibility—and Google’s storied faith in computing power—with the aim of accelerating the pace and increasing the potential of scientific research. “Generally the pace of medical research is glacial compared to what I’m used to in the Internet,” Brin says. “We could be looking lots of places and collecting lots of information. And if we see a pattern, that could lead somewhere.”

In other words, Brin is proposing to bypass centuries of scientific epistemology in favor of a more Googley kind of science. He wants to collect data first, then hypothesize, and then find the patterns that lead to answers. And he has the money and the algorithms to do it."

In tech, agile development means releasing iterative and incremental versions of a software product or website, getting input from your customer about that version, learning from that input, and then repeating the process until you reach an improved finished state. More simply put, it is about “Build…measure…learn.”

So could this approach be applied to writing and publishing a book? Can you build a community around an author creating a book? Would it make a better book, a faster process? How would it work?

Farid Mheir's insight:

Here again we find that digital not only changed the way books are created by replacing manual tasks with digital ones (think using word instead of pen & paper), but it actually changed the way books are written. Digital allows a collaboration between authors and readers that the publisher must accept, support and foster. That is where the transformation may be the most difficult.

Organize anything, together. Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, know what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process.

Farid Mheir's insight:

Trello changes the project management by bringing a simple solution based on cards and the Kanban approach. they have 1M after 16 months and they provide a free solution.

Trick with Trello is simplicity. It replaces a whiteboard with post-it notes. It is visible on multiple monitors, iPad, iPhone, Android. It just works.

Inside selling, which keeps pitchmen off the road, is growing far faster than in-person sales—and by some estimates it’s 10 times cheaper.

Industry estimates show each contact with an inside salesperson might cost a company $25 to $30, compared with $300 to $500 for a field staff person with travel expenses

Farid Mheir's insight:

Sales are being transformed, not eliminated, with digital collaboration technologies. It can help cut costs and improve productivity not only with high tech companies like Verizon or Rosetta Stone but also with Ulrich Barn builders which sells barns and sheds, made out of wood and other real world materials.

Google is encroaching on Microsoft's traditional enterprise customers. Should the software giant be worried?

Farid Mheir's insight:

Simple: knowledge workers that are not computer friendly or live inside of outlook for most of their days will be better off with office365. Others, especially those infrequent email users with minimal office needs - word, excel, powerpoint - will find google apps sufficient for their daily tasks.

Lots of tools out there to perform ethical competitive intelligence for the digital worker to gather facts freely available on the web. Also makes you think about how much surface of attack your company is making available out there on the web for others to see...

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.